In the industrial manufacture and packaging of biscuits, the biscuits leave the cooking oven in a continuous flow, along a plurality of lines and lying flat. For some types of biscuit and packaging it has already been proposed that, travelling along the supply line, the biscuits are stood on edge and abutted against one another. It is then necessary to pick up from the delivery lines appropriate groups either consisting of a predetermined number of biscuits or having, in total, a predetermined length.
Apparatus which is already available for the formation for such groups and their transfer to the receiving lines are subject to considerable difficulties and inconveniences. In fact the solutions which have been resorted to in such known apparatus in order to vary the number of supply lines, provide for temporary shutdowns or malfunctions of some of the lines, cope with variations in the thickness of biscuits in the course of production, or variation of capacity on the supply lines, have been very complex and unwieldy. Furthermore existing equipment, because of its construction and so as not to cause breakages of fragile articles such as biscuits, operates at low speed or takes up too much space.